People

The commitment

A building is valued for how well it serves the people in it. We put their needs, health and daily experience ahead of convention, and we build homes we mean to hold and look after, not sell and leave.

What the usual way assumes

That housing is a product, sized to the spreadsheet. Count the units, hit the return, move on. Policy often adds its own well-meant targets that miss how people really live.

What we think instead

The best places are shaped partly by the people who live there. Homes should invite that: room to grow food, to make things, to age in place, to know the neighbors.

Some of the best work we can do will never be photographed. Lead-safe yards for young children, repairs that prevent falls for older people and bracing for earthquakes do a great deal of good per dollar. No design jury will ever cite them. They belong in every project anyway.

Because we keep what we build, we live with every choice for decades. That changes what we choose.

What we don’t know yet

How to do all of this and still keep homes within reach of people of modest means. Every commitment on this site costs something. We have not found the whole answer, and we distrust anyone who says they have.